


Under the Skin

by bramblePatch



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb/Sgrub Sessions, Ambiguous Relationships, Body Horror, Family Relationships - Freeform, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Rebels, strilonde family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-24
Updated: 2015-03-24
Packaged: 2018-03-19 09:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3604773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bramblePatch/pseuds/bramblePatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Strider had a very brief moment of recognition that wow, those could not be normal eyes, before the Alternian started doing what could only be described as thrashing obnoxiously about and it was all that he could do to keep a hold of his sword and his perch in the cables, with the slightest bit of attention paid to trying to remember the crash course in the Alternian language that he'd attempted a couple of years before. Almost nothing useful came to mind; he couldn't remember if he'd ever learned anything remotely reassuring, and finally he settled for what he hoped was something along the lines of "we're on the same side."</p><p>"Hey, uh - fuck, what was it - <i>in cahoots</i>, ok? <i>I and you, in cahoots</i>!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under the Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dragonnova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonnova/gifts).



The phone call came far too early for Strider's comfort, and for a long, pleasant moment, he seriously considered letting it go to voicemail. The moment passed, though; there weren't many people who would call him at this number at this hour of the day - and "day" was a very general term - and most of them were among the most tenacious bastards he know. Half of them knew where he lived and would have no difficulty or compunction showing up on his doorstep within the hour, if it came to that.

And one of them was Dave, with whom he'd had the "call me any time and I'll come get you, no matter what shit you've gotten into" talk again less than a week ago. Damn. Strider was a bad enough parent already, he knew - you kind of had to come to that conclusion about a man who'd never so much as asked his son to call him "dad," didn't you? If it _was_ Dave, he could hardly afford to ignore it, and the kid _had_ taken to sneaking out lately. Was that weird, in a fifteen-year-old? Strider honestly wasn't sure. See also: not winning parent-of-the-year in the foreseeable future.

The phone was still ringing, and he sighed, fumbling for the unlock button.

It was four-seventeen in the morning, by the phone's clock, and the number and name that glared accusingly at him from the caller ID wasn't Dave, after all. It wasn't anyone he'd dare ignore, though. She might not have been local, but she had her own ways of harassing him incessantly. Besides, he was fairly sure she slept less than he did, these days.

Strider hit the "answer" button, and sighed again, this time directly into the phone, for the caller's benefit. "Rox, I swear to god, if you've gone off overseas and forgotten how time zones work again -"

"Yeah, whatever, keep pretending I should care," Dr. Lalonde snickered in reply. "But anyways, no, that's not it. What's traffic like in your neck of the woods?"

"It's not even five'o'clock, there's a good couple of hours before the morning rush," he sighed. "Not that I know the specifics, because I was _in bed, asleep_ until five minutes ago."

"You actually have a bed?' she asked, sounding vaugely interested. "Only the thing is, last I checked you were still killing your back on a shitty futon..."

"Roxane Lalonde, get to the point," Strider groaned. "Either this is important, or I'm going back to sleep."

"We got a bogey down like fifty miles from you," was the suddenly businesslike - if somewhat excited - response. "Surveillance seems to show it's an Imperial battleship. If you hurry we can probably run interference long enough for you to get there before anyone on the Crocker payroll does."

Dealing with Lalonde when she thought she was being clever and sneaky might have been a pain and a half in the ass, but once she got to the point it was nearly always worth it, and this was certainly no exception. A moment later, he was stumbling his way into a pair of jeans, trying to get dressed one-handed while yammering questions into the phone to Lalonde, who sounded deeply amused but did her best to keep up and supply what answers she had. 

No, they didn't have a lot of recon to share with him, that's why she wanted him on the scene as soon as possible. Yes, there _were_ others on their way, although he was closest; sooner or later other SkaiaNet personnel would be on the scene to set up a perimeter, so please try not to stab any of their own people. It looked like one of those mid-size spiky red cruisers the Alternian higher-ups used as mobile command stations - no, the didn't have any idea _whose_ or if there were any survivors of the crash. They'd gotten what seemed to be a distress signal, or an offer to parlay, or both, shortly before the crash - _yes_ , targeted directly to SkaiaNet, no she didn't know how anyone onboard a command ship of the covert alien invasion would have that capability and _yes_ , that was really fucking troubling, what else was new? Of _course_ it could be a trap, she wasn't stupid. 

"And what about Dave?" Strider demanded. "I'm not exactly at liberty to walk into any old trap with no concern for the kid, Roxy."

She sighed, and he suspected it was as much the qualifying article on "kid" as anything else - _the,_ not _my_ or _our._ "Yeah, I know," she acknowledged after a moment. "It's shitty, Dirk, don't think I want to send you off like this when he's there. But we really haven't got anyone else in the area who's even anything like remotely qualified to handle this. And if shit goes south and you aren't coming out, hit the panic button and I can have him on a plane to New York by noon."

"Roxy -"

"Look, if I had anyone else to send I _would_ , mister," she snapped. "We do not exactly have a surplus of operatives in the greater Houston area!"

She had a point, he knew she did. Several points, and he didn't like any of them much, but someone _did_ have to get out to that wreck before the probably-compromised government agencies did. "Aight. Fine. What the hell. I'm headed out the door now. I'll fill him in once I'm on the road."

"Knew I could count on you. I'm sending you the coordinates."

 

A bit more than an hour later, Strider pulled off onto a marginally adequate-looking patch of gravel on the shoulder of a dirt road that was absolutely not meant for the use of the sort of unwieldy windowless van he drove, and silently cursed the entirely Alternian Empire. If they were going to invade and then start dropping out of the sky, the least they could do would be to do so within spitting distance of civilization.

As Dr. Lalonde had indicated, he was the first one there; he'd passed a few other vehicles these past few miles, but none since he'd left the main roads. It was a little surprising, really, because the ship was _not_ what one could call subtle; bright red, spikey, and easily the size of a small office building, although that was a little harder to tell with how it'd plowed into a fallow field and now lay half-buried. There was no sign of activity beyond the occasional ping of cooling metal or sputter of some wire or conduit rupturing.

It was quiet, and it was damn creepy. For a brief moment, Strider debated waiting for backup, but he'd never hear the end of it if he did, and the longer he waited the greater the chance that someone _not_ with SkaiaNet would show up.

The oddest thing, as he approached the wreck, was how _good_ of shape the space ship was in. Ok, yes, he _knew_ those cruisers were meant for atmospheric work as much as for interstellar flight, but it should still have sustained a lot more damage on an uncontrolled entry into the Earth's atmosphere. This looked almost more like an emergency landing than a crash, but there was absolutely no sign of activity around it, or, as he made a wide circle around the crash site, any sign of survivors having fled the scene before he arrived. A few mangled Alternian corpses had been thrown clear by the impact - vaugely humanoid, horned, seeping bodily fluids in an array of unlikely-seeming colors - but there was no sign of anyone living.

It didn't take long to find an access to the inside of the crash, either; the hatch was blown wide open, paneling around it buckled and stripped - by the force of the collision, or something else, he wasn't sure. If anything, the inside of the ship was in worse shape than the outside; there were a lot more corpses in here, and he thought he could recognize signs of fire damage. 

Dirk Strider was not a man who spooked easily, but he paused for a moment to consider his weaponry options, and pulled his sword from the back-mounted sheath. His handgun, he left holstered; if there was one thing that he'd learned from previous run-ins with Alternian technology, it was that for some reason the aliens favored things that would blow up with very little provocation. 

Further in, there was less carnage, fewer bodies - but what few there were, were mostly caught on doorways, so that Strider had to step around them to continue further into the alien ship. He couldn't shake the impression that they'd been thrown outward, or drawn outward, toward the hull - a catastrophic decompression, maybe? He paused once in a while to take a few photos, before continuing.

He didn't even really realize that every door had been standing wide open, until he came to one that was firmly closed.

It was definitely a door. It was at the end of a wide corridor, and it looked almost exactly like every other door he'd come through, except for the small detail that rather than an open archway it was sealed with a pair of interlocking panels of something that looked vaguely chitinous and vaguely metallic.

Strider paused, stared at it for a moment. Then he kicked it, several times. This did very little good.

Well, he'd come all this way, and now he couldn't imagine going back and telling Lalonde that he _hadn't_ gotten into the room. There was nothing he could recognize as a control panel, so after several minutes of prying, levering, and quite possibly straining something in his shoulder, he managed to get it open wide enough to slip through. Once he was satisfied that it wasn't going to close again behind him, he turned to examine his surroundings.

The air in here was stale and had a slightly bitter-salt taste to it, and there was no sign of the decompression that seemed to have happened in the rest of the ship. The chamber was huge, the ceiling easily thirty feet high, and most of the available space was choked with thick, fleshy cables of some sort, or tentacles, he wasn't sure what the proper terminology was for the Alternians' troublingly organic technology. And tangled in those cables, suspended halfway to the ceiling, was an Alternian man - apparently insensate, but still visibly breathing, and with a haze of red and blue lights crawling between his two sets of horns.

Strider had not actually been expecting to find any survivors in here. He really hadn't. So he did what any right-thinking secret operative of the global rebel force would do, and stared for a moment, dumbfounded, before ducking back out into the corridor and hoping against hope that he still had cell reception in the middle of the wreck.

The signal wasn't as strong as he'd have liked, but it was enough for a call out; a brief moment later Lalonde picked up. "I really hope this is you tellin' me that everything is fine and dandy, Dirk, because I was this close to calling and telling you to clear out. We got feds on their way."

"Fuck," he responded eloquently. "We got a survivor, Lalonde."

"Hostile?"

"Unconscious, as far as I can tell? He looks to be hooked into some kind of machinery."

There was a long moment in which all he could pick up was muffled, disjointed muttering, the kind he knew meant that Lalonde was going through her notes. "Get the troll out if you can," she finally instructed him. "Bring him in."

Strider hesitated; it was a bit of a daunting proposition, on his own. "You sure?"

"Heck, yeah. I'm like mostly percent certain that that's the ship's engine, Dirk. And _none_ of our sources indicate that helmsmen are anything close to volunteers."

Strider sighed. "You know best, I guess," he conceded, hung up, and went back inside.

 

The fleshy cords were absolutely disgusting, but they weren't difficult to climb; within a few minutes, he was clinging to a slightly damp magenta cable and considering the best way to get the troll out. A lot of the cables seemed to actually be connected directly to the guy; under the circumstances, Strider figured that the best bet was probably just to trim them back and hope it didn't totally kill the alien. Honestly, it didn't look like it would take a lot to kill him. Most of the Alternians that Strider had seen, the bodies elsewhere in the ship and the occasional photo or video that SkaiaNet had gotten their hands on, were large and muscular. This man - he had no idea if Alternian genders even worked like human ones did, but they were very physically similar and this one certainly looked male - this man was tall, but thin, almost emaciated. Strider wasn't sure what it would do to him to abruptly disconnect him.

Still, it was cut him loose or leave him where he was, so Strider gritted his teeth and started carefully sawing at the cables with the edge of his sword.

The cables fell away more easily than he might have expected, leaving stumps that oozed a clear, pinkish ichor, and Strider had freed both the man's hands and was starting on the cluster that rooted in his scalp and neck when the troll came to his senses.

Strider had a very brief moment of recognition that wow, those could not be normal eyes, before the Alternian started doing what could only be described as thrashing obnoxiously about and it was all that he could do to keep a hold of his sword and his perch in the cables, with the slightest bit of attention paid to trying to remember the crash course in the Alternian language that he'd attempted a couple of years before. Almost nothing useful came to mind; he couldn't remember if he'd ever learned anything remotely reassuring, and finally he settled for what he hoped was something along the lines of "we're on the same side."

"Hey, uh - fuck, what was it - _in cahoots_ , ok? _I and you, in cahoots_ ," he stumbled over the alien words, half-shouting.

The response was pretty near immediate. The flailing stopped, although the troll was still giving off a nimbus of multi-colored sparks that made the hair on Strider's arms stand on end, and the weird luminous mismatched eyes widened in what certainly looked like delighted surprise. "Your Alternian tongue," the troll said, in strangely accented and slightly lisping but passably coherent English, "is really awful."

Strider shrugged, trying to play it off like he had his xenolinguistic chops busted by guys wired to spaceships all the time. "It's a work in progress," he said, despite the fact that it was more like an abandoned project. "Look, my government's gonna be here soon, and I honestly wouldn't bet on yours being far behind. If I finish cutting you loose, can you walk? Or am I going to have to haul your skinny grey ass out of here myself?"

The Alternian closed his eyes, and for an awful moment Strider was afraid he was going to pass out again. "No, I don't think I can walk," he said finally. "Cut the power drain cables and I will manage, though."

"Right, but which is it? You can't walk or you can?" Strider asked. Was there more of a language barrier than he'd thought? He really hoped they wouldn't have to try switching back to Alternian, because he was still pretty sure that the troll's English was better than his Alternian would be.

The troll harrumphed, a frustrated kind of sound. "I can... move," he said, making a vague gesture with one gaunt hand still covered in the remnants of pink cables. "Don't have the English for it? It's an ability. From my thinkpan."

"Starting to think you don't have the English for a lot of things," Strider commented, but he moved to resume slicing away the cables that connected to the back and sides of the Troll's head. "How the fuck do you speak any English at all, man?"

"Your people aren't careful about broadcast signals. I'm wired directly to the ship's main computer and I don't have a lot else to do," the troll said, moving his head so as to pull the cables taut, and wincing a little as Strider cut through them. "I - ow - I figured learning how to talk to you people was a better use of my time than listening to Her."

Strider could practically hear the capital letter on that pronoun, but he opted to ignore it and focus on the task at hand. The last of the head-mounted cables reluctantly split under his blade, and there was a sudden flare of red and blue light from the troll. 

"Shit, you ok?" he demanded, as the troll slumped forward, panting and sparking.

"Better than I've been in a long time," was the response, although he sounded pained. "Back away. I can do the rest."

"If you say so," Strider replied, and retreated, half-climbing, half-jumping down to floor level. The nimbus of blue and red light intensified, quickly growing to the point that Strider lifted a hand to protect his eyes, even with his signature anime shades still firmly in place.

When the light faded, the column of thick cables was frayed and scorched. The troll that had been held prisoner in the middle of them was slumped on the floor in the middle, muttering something in Alternian which sounded like it was probably cursing - although Strider wasn't able to pick out any individual words, and honestly, a lot of the language sounded pretty profane to his ears. He hurried over, stepping around the frazzled and smoldering scraps of cable. "What the fuck was that?"

"I don't know how to say what it was," the troll responded, yanking the eyepiece off his face; it came away with a sickly noise, leaving behind a number of small yellowish sores. The troll pushed himself into a sitting position and gingerly inspected the remnants of cable that protruded from his tattered yellow jumpsuit at his hips and lower legs. Apparently satisfied with whatever it was he'd seen, he looked up at Strider, eyes flickering. "Are we going, then?"

"Might as well," Strider said, offering a hand to help the alien to his feet; the hand was entirely ignored, as the troll didn't so much stand up as rise to hang improbably in the air, apparently supported by nothing more than a sparse aura of red and blue. Behind his shades, Strider blinked in surprise. "Levitation. Nice."

"Is that how you say it?" the troll asked, with a vague kind of interest.

Strider shrugged. "Humans don't actually do that kind of thing, but we've got stories about it. Levitation, telekinesis for moving other things," he said, and then, remembering the time in highschool that Lalonde had dragged him along to her tabletop gaming club, added, "psionics as a kind of general term, sometimes..."

The alien tilted his head to one side, apparently considering this, then shrugged. "As you said, we don't want to be here when someone's empire shows up. I didn't take down everyone I wanted to; She's somewhere on planet. Let's go."

 

The troll had absolutely no difficulty navigating the wreck of the ship or finding the open hatch - "I know what I opened," was all the explanation that he seemed to think necessary - and though Strider thought he looked vaguely pleased each time they passed a carcass that was as much blue or green as it was grey, the troll mostly seemed anxious to get outside as quickly as possible. Honestly, Strider couldn't blame him. He wasn't sure, but he thought the colored lights were starting to fade by the time they emerged from the alien wreck into the bright, sunny Texas morning. Strider's white van was still the only vehicle in evidence, to his very great relief, and he hurried over to where he'd parked - an hour ago? Half that? He wasn't sure exactly how long he'd spent inside.

It was a moment before he realized that the alien wasn't with him; glancing back, he saw the troll lurking in the tattered access hatch. "Are you coming?" he shouted.

"Give me a moment, I can't see anything!" the troll yelled back, shielding his eyes, and again slipped into what sounded like it had to be Alternian cursing. Strider felt like swearing himself; of course, SkaiaNet's sources had enough intel to indicate that most Alternians were primarily nocturnal. Sudden daylight was enough to strain _his_ eyes, and he was used to these light levels.

"Right. Stay there, then. Just a second," he said, and hurried back. Reaching the wreckage, he pulled off his shades, and pressed them into the alien's hand. "Put these on."

The troll hesitated for a moment, running a finger along the outline of the lenses, and scowled. "I will look like an idiot," he said, matter of factly, but he put the glasses on none the less.

"Nonsense, your coolness factor just doubled," Strider chided him. "Come on. It'll be darker in the van."

Behind the shades, the alien squinted at the white vehicle parked by the road, and nodded. This time, when Strider headed out, he followed close behind, although by the time they got there Strider was sure the play of red and blue lights was fading.

"You'd probably better ride in back," Strider said, hauling open the back doors of the van and wishing, privately, that he'd thought to clean it out recently; the space was mostly empty, with a couple of crates tied to the back of the passenger's seat with bungee cords, and a single slightly grubby smuppet lying haphazardly in the corner. "It'll be darker for you, and there's less chance of anyone outside the vehicle seeing and trying to call the authorities or something."

"Sure," the troll replied, climbing in. As soon as he settled on the floor in a tangle of gangly and battered limbs, the red and blue lights died out; he leaned his head back against the side of the van and took off the pointy anime shades, looking utterly exhausted. 

Strider shook his head, closed the doors, and hurried to the driver's seat.

 

There was no attempt at conversation on the drive back into town; not from the alien in his back seat, at least. A few minutes after they'd gotten back on the main roads, Strider's phone rang. There was a brief flare of multicolored light from the back of the van, but it died down once he managed to get the phone out of his pocket and onto the mount on the dashboard to answer it.

"Where the hell are you?" Lalonde's voice demanded without preamble. "Are you out yet? The cops will be there in _minutes_ , Strider -"

"Yeah, we're on our way back as we speak," he cut her off.

"Why are you _so hecking awful_ at keeping in touch?" she demanded.

"It's a gift, I guess. So anyway, I've got the Alternian with me, he's not in great shape I don't think, but he seems willing enough to cooperate. Hey -" he raised his voice a little, glancing back. "I should have asked earlier, guy, you got a name?"

The troll looked up, a little dully. "Not as such."

"Is that the troll?" Lalonde asked over the phone, her voice bright with curiosity. "I didn't expect its English to be so good."

"He taught himself from hijacking TV broadcasts, apparently," Strider explained, then added for the troll's benefit, "I'm Strider, that's Doctor Lalonde on the phone. Seriously, though, what are we gonna call you? We can't just keep calling you 'the troll.'"

There was a long moment before the alien replied. "What was the word for brain-powers you said? Psionic?"

"Yeah. Psion's usually the term for someone with them."

"People used to call me something that would mean something like 'the Psion'. A long time ago. It will work."

"Cool. Psion it is, then," Strider replied. He glanced back again, and caught a very small smile on the Psion's face.

On the phone, Lalonde spoke up again. "I figure you should lay low for a few days, then all've you guys head out my way for a while," she said. "You oughta be more central to SkaiaNet, Dirk, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to get our new friend out of Texas."

"Just what I need, a road trip," Strider sighed. "You're right, though, we should probably regroup. And I'm sure Dave will want to see Rose."

"Yeah, we don't get them in the same place often enough," she said, sounding a little wistful, and Strider snorted.

"You were the one who said we should each take one of the twins," he pointed out.

"I didn't think you were gonna up and move to _Houston_ with him as soon as you finished highschool, though," she pointed out.

"Take it up with Old Lady Egbert."

" _Dirk_."

Strider sighed. "Yeah. I know. I didn't have to go, I shouldn't blame it on the dead lady," he conceded. "It could have been some other poor bastard stationed here for you to send into a wreck site at an ungodly hour of the morning."

There was a long silence. "Yeah. Well. Give me a call when you get back, so I know you're not stranded out on the side of the road somewhere," she said finally.

"Yes, _mom_ ," Strider replied, and the phone flashed its 'call disconnected' screen at him.

 

Luckily, the garage under Strider's building was deserted when he pulled in; everyone who worked days had long since cleared out. He briefly considered taking the elevator, but decided the back stairs were probably safer if they wanted to avoid running into anyone.

"It's how far up?" the Psion asked, squinting into the stairwell; the lights from his eyes reflected uncertainly off the rough, industrial concrete walls.

"About thirty floors," Strider replied. "Can you make it?"

The alien sighed. "Probably," he said.

In actual fact, he seemed to have an easier time of it than Strider did; at any rate, floating far enough off the ground as to clear each step, he was climbing faster than the human was, and although he faltered a few times, he stayed airborne until they reached the right floor and Strider paused in front of his door to find his keys. Then, the Psion dropped to his feet, leaning against the wall; a few seconds later, his knees buckled and he sank to the floor with another of those words Strider was _sure_ were profanity.

"Whoa, man, you ok?" Strider asked in surprise, and the Psion glared at the floor and sighed.

"Apparently standing up is not like riding a... a two-wheel device," he said. "I'm not hurt, just. Out of practice."

Strider unlocked the door. "Well, come on, be out of practice inside," he said, holding the door open behind him. As the alien telekinetically pulled himself to his feet - for lack of a better description - Strider turned into the apartment and yelled, "Dave! You home?"

"No!" was the slightly muffled reply, but a moment later the teenager emerged from his bedroom, still pajama-clad and wearing a look of faint annoyance that turned to befuddled surprise when he saw the Psion collapsing onto the futon couch.

"There is a kid in your hive," the troll observed, almost in unison with Dave saying, "Bro, you brought home a troll."

Strider sighed, closing and locking the door behind himself and his new houseguest.

"Dave, this is the Psion, Psion, this is Dave," he said, waving a hand vaguely between them. "Dave, go call your mother and tell her we're not dead."

" _Why_ did you bring home a troll?" Dave persisted, doubt writ large on his face, even with the aviator shades obscuring his eyes. " _Mom_ knows you brought home a troll?"

"Because I was hardly going to leave him for Crocker goons to pick up, and yes," Strider said, a little distractedly, brushing past the son he insisted on referring to as his brother, and heading into the bathroom to find the apartment's largest and best-stocked first-aid kit. "Now go call her. Scram."

Dave ducked back into his room, and a moment later Strider could hear him on the phone with Lalonde; satisfied, he hauled the first-aid kit out into the living room and over to the futon. "I'm pretty sure _some_ of that stuff that was leaking out of you is blood," he said unceremoniously, opening the plastic case.

The Psion looked up from toying with a bit of cable that still hung from his forearm, and sighed. "Less than there probably will be," he admitted, "Do you have a knife? Very sharp and clean?"

"What? Yeah, but what do you - you don't seriously want to cut that stuff out, do you? Is that safe?"

The alien shrugged. "I've never heard of a... helmsman? I think would be the right word? getting out of the ship," he said. "I don't know what's safe at this point. But I don't want this under my skin, and I don't want to go to a human doctor if it's the same to you."

As little as Strider liked the idea of the alien performing minor surgery on himself in his livingroom, he had to admit that the Psion had a point. And if there was one thing the Strider household was not lacking, it was sharp objects. "Right," he said. "It'll take a few minutes to sterilize, but I've got an exacto blade around here somewhere. Needle and thread, too. Some of that's probably going to need stitches."

 

If only to himself, Strider had to admit he was impressed with how the Psion went about cutting the cables out; he liked to think of himself as pretty tough, but he was absolutely certain he wouldn't have been able to cut into his own flesh like that. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to do it on someone else, which made it a nasty shock when, after finishing carefully bandaging the shallow cuts on his arms, legs, and face, the Psion held the knife out to Strider, handle first.

"I can't reach the ones on my back and neck," he explained.

"And you want _me_ cutting into you?" Strider demanded.

The Psion scowled. "Not really," he admitted, "but unless you think that boy would be better at it, you're the only choice. I can't reach them and I don't have that much fine control with telekinesis."

Strider sighed. "And just leaving them for the moment isn't an option?"

"No." The word was quiet, but accompanied by a flare of blue and red. "She is _under my skin_ and I _want Her out_ , Strider. Please."

There was that capital-S She again; Strider winced a little at the venom in the troll's voice. He sighed, and carefully took the knife. "Ok. I'll do my best."

It wasn't so bad, really, as long as he didn't focus on the way that the troll's skin twitched and occasionally sparked under the blade; the Psion was remarkably stoic, and was able and even, apparently, willing to carry on a conversation while Strider worked. The conversation was a welcome distraction, if not an entirely comfortable one.

"So. Why _is_ there a sub-adult living in your hive," the troll asked, as Strider worked on a bit of burned-through cord sprouting from between his shoulder blades; luckily, although the filiments of the cables spread through the yellow-tinted flesh under the skin, the Psion had conceded that getting the main mass out was the important bit, and that didn't extend much below the skin. It was a nerve-wracking project, but the troll seemed fairly confident that it wasn't a dangerous one. Or maybe he was just that desperate.

"Uh, because he's my kid?" Strider replied. "I mean, the one I've got custody of. The other one lives with her mom. Both of their mom."

"I'm not sure I understand," the Psion said; Strider couldn't see his face, but he sounded more thoughtful than anything else.

"Look, how do trolls deal with their kids? Humans usually raise their own offspring." He yanked out the mass of pink cords, tossing it into the basin he'd placed next to the futon for that purpose; he was never, _ever_ going to use that basin for anything else ever again. Maybe he'd burn it. That sounded like a good idea that wasn't at all an overreaction.

"Not like that," the troll said. "So you just keep your own immediate genetic descendant with you? All the time?"

"Usually. A lot of people make a whole household with both parents romantically together, raising the kid as a pair, but that... didn't work out so well with Roxy and me," Strider admitted.

"That's the Doctor Lalonde you were answering to?" the Psion asked; if nothing else, Strider had to give him props for being quick on the uptake.

"Yeah. Years and years back, though." Strider chuckled, a little darkly. He wasn't sure why he was opening up on this, except that when he was very literally opening up the troll's back, it somehow seemed fair to give something, himself. "We were stupid kids, ourselves, you know? It was an experiment we shouldn't have made, and we certainly didn't expect to end up with one baby, let alone two. Roxy wanted to get married as soon as we were old enough, but..."

A long pause ensued, as Strider retrieved the needle and thread and carefully put in a few stitches on what, if he was very careful, he could look at a strangely moist and leathery smuppet under construction. Eventually, the troll prompted him. "...But?"

Strider shrugged, although he knew his patient was looking entirely in the wrong direction to see it. "I believe my response was something along the lines of 'I'm sorry, but I'm too young and too homosexual to marry you,'" he explained. "I think she cooked up the each-of-us-takes-one scheme because she wanted to make sure I didn't stop talking to her entirely and she knew I was gonna need at least a little help with a baby."

"I don't know what 'homosexual' means," the troll admitted, after a moment.

"Oh. Uh." Strider was suddenly very glad that he didn't have to look the Psion in the eyes, as alien as those eyes were. "It means I only form romantic and sexual attractions to other men."

The Psion chuckled, the laugh broken momentarily by a sharp intake of breath as Strider's needle caught the edge of the incision. "And here you've got me half-naked in your hivestem."

Strider paused, a little taken aback. Well, ok, the troll wasn't bad looking, in an alien kind of way, and Strider would be lying if he said he wasn't actually enjoying the man's company, or that he didn't admire the way he'd handled himself through all this, but - "Yeah, well, I'm still not sure whether you count as a refugee or a prisoner of war."

"Which one makes it ok for me to come on to you?" the troll asked, and Strider could swear he could hear the grin in the man's voice.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out," was what Strider finally committed to saying. "Not that I've got the best track record. Like I said, the thing with Lalonde was a stupid experiment. Could've ruined our friendship."

"Ah." The troll paused for a long moment, considering, maybe. "You seem to have come through it ok?"

"Well, it was sixteen years ago. We've both grown up a lot," Strider sighed. "Besides, there are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and apparently fighting in the secret resistance against an invading empire of trolls is one of them. No offense."

The Psion chuckled. "None taken."

 

After they finished removing the remnants of the engine system from the Psion's skin, he ate half a carton of eggs - the only thing he was absolutely willing to commit to eating at the moment, as Strider's kitchen was not the best supplied at the best of times and everything else was apparently unacceptably alien, at least for the time being - and then fell asleep on the futon. For twenty hours.

Strider considered trying to wake him at first, but he seemed to be breathing steadily and he only occasionally gave off blue and red sparks, and Strider figured that he could probably use the time to heal. Besides, the longer the troll was out of commission, the longer Strider didn't have to deal with the fact that he'd just spilled large portions of his life story to the guy. He still wasn't sure why he'd said as much as he had; at this point, about the only person who knew more of the story was Lalonde herself.

Well, at least the guy didn't seem to have been particularly upset about anything Strider had told him. Maybe it wouldn't be hellishly awkward when he finally woke up. One could hope.

For the moment, though, he lingered for a moment outside Dave's room - the sound from inside was now the kid's music, so he must have finished checking in with Lalonde - before skulking off to sit by the rooftop air-conditioning unit. For a long moment, he contemplated his phone, and by extension the larger universe that included his phone, and then sighed and opened the messaging app.

_bro. roof. now. dont wake the troll. we gotta talk._

A few minutes later, Dave appeared; when he saw Strider sitting, unarmed, on the ground, he visibly relaxed, and kicked his way across the gravel-strewn roof.

"Yeah?"

"You talked to your mom?" Strider asked, shoving his phone into the pocket of his jeans.

Dave shrugged. "Yeah. She says we're gonna go out and see her? Us and..."

"And the troll, yeah," Strider sighed. He scooted over a little in the scant shade of the air-conditioner, and nodded at the empty space; Dave hesitated a little, and then joined him.

"Shit's getting real, then." It wasn't a question. Dave was too smart to question that it was happening. He probably knew it was going to keep happening, too.

"Looks that way. Are you still in touch with the Harley girl?" Strider asked.

"Jade? Yeah, we talk," Dave said; he looked away as he said it, chucking a bit of gravel across the roof. Trying to play it cool, if Strider was any judge, which made him suspect that it was more than just talking. Well, if his fifteen-year-old was going to discover girls, it might as well be one who lived in the middle of the Pacific.

"You might start seeing if you can talk her down a little," he suggested. "We might need that island as a base, and it'd be nice to be able to make landfall without her blowing us the fuck up."

On the other hand, if his fifteen-year-old was going to discover girls, maybe it would have been better if it wasn't one with access to nuclear weaponry. Strider had really admired the girl's grandfather, but he'd be the first to admit that Mr. Harley had been a little off his rocker, and from what he knew of her, Jade was a chip off the block, except moreso.

"I'll try," Dave said, a little doubtfully; Strider sincerely hoped that he was just trying to sound noncommittal.

"Yeah. Hey. Sorry about dumping this in your lap, dude," Strider said, after a moment.

Dave shrugged. "Bro, it's been _in_ my lap basically my entire life," he pointed out. "I knew shit was going to hit the fan sooner or later. I'm glad it took long enough that I'm old enough to do something other than shit my pants and cry."

He looked as if he was going to add something, hesitated, and then shrugged. "Honestly? I'm kind of glad that we're actually pulling together for it. Getting our shit all in the same place." Another long pause. "As a family."

"Dave, your mom and I aren't -" Strider began.

"I _know,_ " Dave snapped, but he sounded more annoyed than angry. "But she's still _my_ mom. And Rose is still my sister. And your kid."

Strider sighed. "Ok. Yeah, that's fair."

"And I don't fucking buy it that you and Mom aren't some kinda family to each other," Dave added, with a little more heat.

The metal side of the air-conditioner clunked faintly as Strider leaded back against it. The two of them sat in silence for a moment longer, and then Dave stood up, dusted off his jeans, and went back inside.

 

The rest of the day was spent awkwardly tiptoeing around the sleeping troll in the living room and to a lesser extent each other; Strider fell asleep at his computer late that night and managed to stay there for a solid seven hours. When he woke up, he had the imprint of his mouse on the side of his face, and a cup of only slightly luke-warm coffee was sitting on the desk next to him, with Lil' Cal wrapped around it. He blinked blearily at the puppet - Dave was either really mad at him or really apologetic, because he was pretty sure there was no other way that the kid would dare to purposefully pose Cal like that.

The coffee was still marginally palatable, though, and as the previous day came back to him in a rush, Strider gulped it down on the theory that the sooner he had an appreciable amount of caffeine in his system the better.

The futon was empty, but by the volume of the music coming down the hall, the door of Dave's room was standing open for once. Still a little groggy, Strider got up and went to investigate.

The troll was sitting crosslegged on Dave's bed. He looked like he'd managed to find the shower at some point, and at any rate he'd discarded the tattered yellow and black bodysuit, and was wearing what certainly appeared to be some of Strider's old clothes; the jeans were a little short and a little baggy on him, and the collar of the t-shirt had been cut through to make enough room to get it over the Psion's horns, but overall the effect was to be so utterly mundane as to be a little surreal. Dave was fussing over the sound system.

Strider lingered for a long moment in the doorway, watching, before Dave looked up and spotted him. "Bro. Your alien buddy has the _weirdest_ taste in music," he said, not entirely unapprovingly.

There was no way to be sure, not with the way that the Psion's eyes glowed solid colors, but Strider had the distinct impression that the troll was rolling his eyes. "I'm a little surprised this place has produced _any_ music worth listening to," he retorted, equally good-naturedly.

"Says the guy who likes dubstep remixes of showtunes," Dave sighed.

Strider raised an eyebrow the exactly calculated distance necessary for it to show over the edge of his shades. "Why did you _have_ dubstep remixes of showtunes in the first place?" he asked.

Dave shrugged, and smirked. "For impressing aliens, apparently," he replied.

"Well, I'm glad you were prepared. Now you've got something to put on the mixtape for the drive to New York," Strider said, and turned to wander off to the kitchen in search of something for breakfast.

"Your van doesn't even have a tape player!" Dave yelled after him. "Nothing has a tape player, the nineteen-nineties called and took them all back!"

Strider couldn't help smirking a little to himself as he started a fresh pot of coffee to brew; the cup that'd been left for him was a nice gesture, but he didn't think anyone would object too much if he replaced it with some that hadn't been sitting out for who knew how long. Back down the hall, the Psion asked, "What's a tape?" and Dave launched into a nigh-incoherent explanation of a form of data storage, the workings of which he didn't seem to understand.

The distinct feeling that some kind of shit was about to hit the fan hung almost palpably in the air, but somehow, Strider was feeling kind of optimistic.


End file.
